Pickleball has gained popularity at the Pickens County Community Center. The rec. department makes one of their basketball courts available every weekday for pickleball players.

The name “pickleball” is quirky enough to catch most people’s attention, but it’s the game itself that has a growing number of locals excited.

“It’s really taking off,” said Pickens County Parks & Recreation Director Brian Jones. “We have people playing five days a week. If we could offer it more, they would probably take us up on that offer.”

If you’re not familiar with pickleball, imagine a fusion of ping pong, tennis, and badminton. Singles or doubles play with a modified tennis net that sits low to the ground. Players use paddles that look like large ping pong paddles, and plastic balls similar to Wiffle balls. Paddles cost anywhere between $10 to well over $100.

Pickleball was developed in 1965 by a group of three dads in Washington state when their kids got bored one summer. The game has gained popularity over the years, with NBC calling pickleball one of the fastest-growing sports in America “that can be played by anyone.”

With Georgia on solid ground with revenue, the legislative session opening this week will see lawmakers looking at how to improve the Peach State.

In a preview of the session, State Rep. Rick Jasperse (District 11) said, “We’ll be looking at how to make Georgia a better place. We want to continue to see Georgia as a great place to do business and to live.”

The state budget is the number one issue, reaching into all other areas of government. From schools to prisons, it falls back on the budget as to what the state can do, said Jasperse, who has represented Pickens County in the state’s House since 2010.

What's worse than a major home maintenance disaster? Try several major home maintenance disasters at once. When a house's water pipes freeze, the situation is not as simple as calling a plumber. A 1/8-inch crack in a pipe can spew up to 250 gallons of water a day, causing flooding, serious structural damage, and the immediate potential for mold.

Frozen water pipes are a problem in both cold and warmer climates, affecting a quarter-million families each winter, and it can happen in homes with both plastic and copper pipes. It's all too common, especially considering this damage is largely preventable.

On December 15th, a Pickens deputy used his issued naloxone injector to revive an overdose victim, likely saving his life. On December 16 this happened again with another deputy using the voice-prompts with the Evzio opiod emergency injection kit to bring around someone who had overdosed.

Deputies here, have been carrying Narcan (naloxone) injection kits since 2016 and have three uses where someone who had overdosed was brought back to consciousness, preventing what could have been three overdose deaths.

In the past month another two people (brothers) both overdosed on the same day with one brother being dropped off at the Hinton Fire Department unresponsive and the second brother found unresponsive in the parking lot of the QuikTrip on Highway 515. Both survived after being taken to the hospital.

This Potts Mountain property, shown above, is now permanently protected.

In a move with far-reaching implications, 1,378 acres comprising the Potts Mountain section of Big Canoe was placed into permanent conservation status in December.

Phil Landrum III, the attorney for the Atlantic Coast Conservancy as well as Pickens County, confirmed that Potts Mountain Investors, LLC had put all the property into a conservation easement. Landrum said the easement, which restricts development there to only five potential homesites, had been signed and recorded in both Pickens and Dawson counties.